I’ve been playing Fire Emblem since I was about 12 — a terrifying 19 years ago. Over that time, I’ve gone back to play the old games alongside the new releases (I daren’t think about how many hours I’ve spent staring at grids). I was a loud voice of request during the series dry spell, and I’ve eaten very well as it has found a new audience in the 3DS, Switch and Switch 2 generations.
So you can imagine how excited I was to get my mittens on Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, the latest Nintendo Switch 2 title in the series. The extra power of the system would give Nintendo more space to innovate in a series that’s rarely seen any new features, I thought. The reveal trailer looked promising. The character reveals were tempting.
And then it arrived in my hands. I’ve now played more hours than I care to admit, and I’ve got an idea of how the game fares compared to its older siblings.
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In a few words — very well. In a few more, Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave does a great job of bringing loads of cool new stuff to the table. But the best parts are the solidification and perfection of features we’ve been playing for a long time. And that’s pretty cool.
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave — Overview Trailer — Nintendo Switch 2 – YouTube
Fire Emblem has had some form of map for a long time, and each title has treated it slightly differently, for better or worse. Some have made the map a path your party automatically follows, never allowing you to strengthen your forces beyond the main story missions. Some have given you too much in the world map, allowing you to make your army as overpowered as possible, trivialising the main battles. I’d argue that no game has ever gotten the balance perfect.
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Fortune’s Weave gets closer than ever. The refresh to the turn system means you need to make more decisions about how far to go around the map, adding an extra layer of thought to proceedings. The time you don’t spend in battles is now more tactical as a result.
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Rather than the free battles seen in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Engage, you have to think about how to strengthen your forces. Do you do battle, or use the new “auto free time” feature to gain those precious levels? After all, you could be using those turns for vital exploration, or finding items that might be useful down the line.
But that takes turns — and turns are money. Watching that timer go down before the next mission, knowing you’ve side quests to do and stuff to find for your soldiers, makes it a whole lot more engaging than it has been before.
It’s not perfect. Sometimes you feel like you want more turns, and sometimes you want fewer. And remembering to go to the spot where your next mission takes place is irritating — especially when letting those turns run out before the mission time means you have to start a section all over again. But it’s the best world map I’ve experienced in a Fire Emblem game for some time.
The best those battles have looked
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Everything feels better balanced this time around. While enemy unit placement still isn’t perfect (no Fire Emblem ever is), which can make for comical conical feeding of sword-based opponents coming up against a one-shot from your perfectly placed armored spearman (called a “guardian” this time around), the battles are more engaging than ever.
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Everything looks slicker and smoother than previous titles. The information you’re given is not only easier to read than in the smaller boxes from old games, but also useful in working out how your tactics are going to play out.
There’s only so much you can do with a grid, but this is the best that Fire Emblem has ever played or looked. Small things, like improved unit movement prediction, make playing the game more fun than frustrating.
The routes work better than ever
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Fire Emblem has long flirted with routes that tell different stories with the same characters. There were the Fates games, which let you play different routes depending on the version of the game you bought. It was fine — but it wasn’t perfect. Then Three Houses launched, a fan favorite. As much as I adore that game, the routes system still wasn’t the best; character arcs felt rushed at times, and playing through all of them took ages.
Fortune’s Weave trims down the length of each route by quite a margin, and then brings everything together towards the end of the game. There are four routes this time, each with their own main characters and story beats, even though they occur in the same place. You can even recruit characters from one route while you play another — it’s pretty cool.
It’s also well worth playing through each one. Their unique stories are engaging and interesting, and watching everything fit together as you play feels great.
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Some things are missing here. As much as the new dungeon-crawling sections are fun, they are extremely simple and a bit of a drag after a while. There are far fewer support conversations between characters, meaning fewer combat bonuses and less story content.
The graphics are good, but I don’t feel like I’m playing the Fire Emblem game of the future. The system feels like it’s got more to give. The different classes your characters can be feel more restrictive than before, which is annoying.
But those are minor frustrations in what is otherwise a great game. I’ve already put too many hours in — I can’t wait to add even more.
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